Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will estimate the total number of ministerial replies from his Department to hon. Members in a parliamentary session; and what proportion of such replies are sent (a) by letter and (b) by email.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my Rt. hon. Friend, the Minister for the Cabinet Office (Francis Maude), on 7 July 2014, Official Report, columns 5-6W.

A search of the Department's ministerial correspondence database has identified 17,068 ministerial replies sent to hon. Members in the 2013-14 parliamentary session. Of these, 16,687 were sent by letter and 201 were sent by email.